Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Sunset: Survivors

Stan Howard Las Vegas, NV October 4th, 1991

After Stan made it back to his room, he sat on his bed and stared at the wall for six straight hours. The shock of what he had seen overwhelmed him. Stan drifted in and out of a conscious state for those hours. Occasionally he was aware of where he was. When in a deeper state of shock or denial, Stan’s mind went to his home town of Clear Creek, Wisconsin in the south eastern part of the state.

Clear Creek was a town of about twenty two thousand people. Stan grew up there with his brother and parents in a middle class house in a middle class neighborhood. For the first thirteen years of his life, Stan had a pretty normal childhood. On one cold Saturday in January, normal became the last word Stan would use to describe his childhood.